AE6P07 - Primary Education Research Project and Dissertation (2024/25)
| Module specification | Module approved to run in 2024/25 | ||||||||||||||||
| Module title | Primary Education Research Project and Dissertation | ||||||||||||||||
| Module level | Honours (06) | ||||||||||||||||
| Credit rating for module | 60 | ||||||||||||||||
| School | School of Social Sciences and Professions | ||||||||||||||||
| Total study hours | 600 | ||||||||||||||||
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| Assessment components |
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| Running in 2024/25(Please note that module timeslots are subject to change) | No instances running in the year |
Module summary
This module offers an opportunity for independent study and aims to enable students to:
- Undertake a professional placement in an educational setting.
- Develop further professionally by pursuing a line of study that arises out of an aspect of interest from the course.
- Extend professional competence by developing a critical understanding of the relationship between theory and practice.
- Introduce some of the major positions/philosophies in relation to research methods.
- Develop an understanding of the major research methodologies used in the field of early years/primary education by building on modules taught on the course for example AE4021 and AE5017.
- Develop an awareness of ethics in relation to research design, execute and evaluate a small-scale research project and experience supervised independent study of an extended nature.
- Develop some of the skills required for post-graduate study.
Prior learning requirements
Enhanced DBS for school placement.
Syllabus
The syllabus for this module will include:
The module provides students with opportunities to further develop essential skills in professional practice with children through work-based experience [100 hours]. Students will have opportunities to reflect on their placement experiences and in doing this undertake a piece of independent research.
The individual project allows students to carry out a systematic investigation of a topic. The area of investigation is chosen by the student and should arise from personal and professional interest in an area of early years/primary education. The content of the project may be an extension of work already undertaken on the course or may arise out of an aspect of the student’s professional concerns, drawing together issues of theory and practice.
Some of the key areas include:
- Research theory
- Research design and planning
- Ethics
- Research tools
- Critical reading and writing
- Data analysis
- Communicating your findngs
- Children’s perspectives
- Addressing diversity within research
- Reflexivity
Balance of independent study and scheduled teaching activity
Learning will be supported through face-to-face tutorials, workshops and seminars (including accessing online resources) and independent study. Students will also engage in a 100-hour placement experience within an educational setting.
Students will be given a Research, Practice and Placement Booklet. which they will refer to and use throughout this module and across the two years of the course. This booklet will also be used in all placement and school visits and can be shown and used in work with their mentors in the schools.
Students will be expected to actively engage with additional materials and discussion opportunities that will be available via WebLearn. A record of tutorials will be kept by supervising dissertation tutors.
Learning outcomes
On successul completion of this module, students will be able to:
1. Generate and critically evaluate research questions relating to early years/primary education.
2. Communicate a detailed research plan and timeline for a small-scale research project.
3. Describe, analyse, and constructively critique research and theoretical perspectives related to the research focus, by accessing information from a wide range of sources and having regard to the trustworthiness and validity of the information and its social, cultural and political context.
4. Demonstrate competence in research skills related to education through designing and carrying out an independent study using appropriate methods of data collection and engaging in critical reflection upon the ethics of educational research.
5. Present, discuss and evaluate research findings using theory to examine data and to develop plausible arguments.
6. Demonstrate insight into an aspect of early years/primary education research and develop reflexivity as a novice researcher.
Assessment strategy
Students will demonstrate that they have met the learning outcomes through the submission of:
1. Research plan and timeline detailing student’s research proposal either a spoken a 10-minute podcast or 2000 word written research plan [20%]
2. Research project 9,000 – 10,000 words [80%]. This should generally contain the following elements:
• An abstract.
• A title and contents page.
• An introduction to the study, outlining the rationale / context for the study.
• A review of the literature central to the area studied.
• A discussion of the methods of investigation used.
• A presentation of the main findings from the data collected discussed in relation to research and theories relevant to the topic.
• Conclusions.
• Acknowledgements, appendices and a reference section.
3. Satisfactory report from placement provider (0%)